scholarly journals Nature in Progress – Tocqueville and the Transformation of Natural Law

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Ádám Smrcz
Keyword(s):  
Natural Law ◽  
Natural Laws ◽  
Hayden White ◽  
Precise Content ◽  
The Way

Hayden White famously claimed that Tocqueville’s emplotment of history was „tragic” by genre, and his ideological implications were „radical”. The aim of this paper is to argue that this interpretation is correct, but that our arguments will be based on a subject entirely ignored by White: Tocqueville’s  meagre scarce remarks on nature and natural law. According to their commonsensical definition, natural laws must „stem from God, nature, or reason”, but this relationship in Tocqueville is highly problematic. As I intend to prove, Tocqueville probably did acknowledge the existence of natural laws, and even intended to describe their resulting obligations (as in the case of what virtuous deeds are, or what humanity is etc.), but the way he defined nature herself suggests that the precise content of such obligations cannot be settled easily. Hence, according to our claim, a disturbing tension can be observed between the way Tocqueville attempted to describe certain natural laws, and the way he defined natural laws in general. Furthermore, this tension is analogous with the aforementioned friction between the author’s personal convictions and his scientific conclusions.

scholarly journals RUDOLF VON JHERING E A GENELOGIA DA ÉTICA: O DEVIR HISTÓRICO COMO DETERMINANTE DA PROCEDÊNCIA DO SENTIMENTO JURÍDICO * RUDOLF VON JHERING AND THE GENELOGIA ETHICS: THE BECOMING HISTORY AS DETERMINING THE ORIGIN OF THE LEGAL SENSE

2015 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 101
Author(s):  
Henrique Garbellini Carnio
Keyword(s):  
Natural Law ◽  
Historical Development ◽  
Philosophy Of Law ◽  
Natural Laws ◽  
Em 12 ◽  
The Absolute ◽  
The Law ◽  
Legal Sense ◽  
The Way

<p><strong>Resumo:</strong> O presente artigo tem como base a conferência dada por Rudolf von Jhering em 12 de março de 1884 para a Sociedade Jurídica de Viena, intitulada "Sobre o nascimento do sentimento jurídico". O objetivo é demonstrar algumas reflexões surpreendentes e pouco conhecidas deste importante jurista, enfatizando, em especial, a importância que ele atribui ao devir histórico na formação do sentimento jurídico, apostando que o sentido do direito é modelado pela história e não proveniente das leis naturais eternas. Jhering, propondo uma tarefa genealógica, defende de forma contundente um historicismo ético e jurídico que o distancia de um relativismo absoluto como o das clássicas posições jusnaturalistas, completamente ahistóricas, que se revela extremamente interessante para as reflexões atuais sobre a filosofia do direito.</p><p><strong>Palavras-chave:</strong> Rudolf von Jhering; sentimento jurídico; historicismo ético-político.</p><p><strong>Abstract:</strong> This article is based on a lecture given by Rudolf von Jhering on March 12, 1884 for the Law Society of Vienna, entitled "About the birth of the legal feeling." The objective is to demonstrate some surprising and little-known reflections of this important jurist, emphasizing, in particular, the importance he attaches to the historical development in the formation of the legal feeling, betting that the sense of law is shaped by history and not from the eternal natural laws. Jhering proposing a genealogical task, forcefully defends an ethical and legal historicism that distances him of the absolute relativism as the way of classic natural law positions, completely ahistorical, that reveals itself highly interesting for the current reflections on the philosophy of law.</p><p><strong>Keywords:</strong> Rudolf von Jhering; legal feeling; ethical and political historicism.</p>

At the Crossroads: Justus Lipsius and the Early Modern Development of International Law

2007 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-88 ◽  
Author(s):  
HALVARD LEIRA
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
International Law ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Modern Age ◽  
Modern Development ◽  
The Many ◽  
Late Renaissance ◽  
The Way

Justus Lipsius (1547–1606) was among the most famed intellectuals in his time, but was largely forgotten during the Enlightenment. Intellectually, he stood at an important crossroads, his thought incorporating both late Renaissance traits and precursors of the early modern age. In this article I give a brief intellectual background to Lipsius's thought before concentrating on his thought regarding the lawful interaction between polities, with a focus on lawful government, dissimulation, war, and empire. I then detail the way in which Lipsian thought critically informed later theory and practice. It contained an eclectic mix of divine law, natural law, and positive human law, with some elements borrowed and popularized from earlier writers and others being more original. In the end, his work stands out both as an important inspiration for later theorists and practitioners, and as an example of the many idiosyncrasies and possible trajectories that early international law could have adopted.

Show the Heavens More Just: Ordering Society in Utopia, King Lear, and The Tempest

Moreana ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 45 (Number 174) (2) ◽  
pp. 193-210
Author(s):  
Arthur Kincaid
Keyword(s):  
Sense Of Community ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
Active Participation ◽  
King Lear ◽  
Thomas More ◽  
The Tempest ◽  
Legal Problems ◽  
The Way

Using essentially dramatic methods, creating an imaginary country, and setting up moral tension by having characters interact in a realm of complex ideas, Thomas More in Utopia draws the reader into active participation. Later, Shakespeare carries forward some of the ideas introduced in Utopia. In King Lear he responds to similar social and legal problems, and in The Tempest, inspired like More by recent discoveries of new lands, invents a strange world. Using georgic or pastoral dimensions, both authors explore the nature/nurture theme. While implying Christian ideals, More sets his fictive world outside Christianity, introducing it explicitly as the work reaches its conclusion - a technique Shakespeare echoes. By stimulating imaginative sympathy in their audience, these works open the way to a sense of community which accords with natural law.

The Logic of Tacit Inference

Philosophy ◽  
1966 ◽  
Vol 41 (155) ◽  
pp. 1-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Polanyi
Keyword(s):  
Natural Law ◽  
Theory Of Knowledge ◽  
New Directions ◽  
Explicit Content ◽  
The Way

I propose to bring fresh evidence here for my theory of knowledge and expand it in new directions. We shall arrive most swiftly at the centre of the theory, by going back to the point from which I started about twenty years ago. Upon examining the grounds on which science is pursued, I saw that its progress is determined at every stage by indefinable powers of thought. No rules can account for the way a good idea is found for starting an inquiry; and there are no firm rules either for the verification or the refutation of the proposed solution of a problem. Rules widely current may be plausible enough, but scientific enquiry often proceeds and triumphs by contradicting them. Moreover, the explicit content of a theory fails to account for the guidance it affords to future discoveries. To hold a natural law to be true, is to believe that its presence may reveal itself in yet unknown and perhaps yet unthinkable consequences; it is to believe that such laws are features of a reality which as such will continue to bear consequences inexhaustibly.

Leon Petrażycki jako twórca nowej teorii prawa naturalnego

2018 ◽  
Vol 74 ◽  
pp. 185-188
Author(s):  
Maria Szyszkowska
Keyword(s):  
21St Century ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
Legal Positivism ◽  
Legal Regulations ◽  
Philosophy Of Law ◽  
Scientific Disciplines ◽  
Variable Content ◽  
Human Psyche ◽  
The Way

Petrażycki’s philosophy of law remains significant in the 21st century and adheres to the concept of democracy as a system characterized by ideological pluralism. Leon Petrażycki is often mistakenly included in legal positivism. Alike Rudolf Stammler, he is the creator of the theory of natural law of with variable content. The essential necessity of ideals in the life of individuals and society demonstrated by Petrażycki is very important because the ideals perfect the human psyche. Petrażycki’s view indicating the importance of consciousness is significant beyond other scientific disciplines. All legal regulations depend on its level of development, and determine the way of management.

scholarly journals “In Harmony with Reason”: John Duns Scotus’s Theo-aesth/ethics

Open Theology ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Oleg Bychkov
Keyword(s):  
Natural Law ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Divine Command ◽  
Moral Norms ◽  
God's Will ◽  
Accurate Model ◽  
The Past ◽  
Freedom Of The Will ◽  
The Will ◽  
The Way

AbstractOver the past two decades, the debate has intensified over the nature of John Duns Scotus’s (meta) ethics: is it a purely voluntarist “divine command” ethics or is it still based on rational principles? The former side is exemplified by Thomas Williams and the latter by Allan Wolter. Scotus claims that even the divine commandments that are not based on natural law are still somehow “in harmony with reason.” But what does this mean? Richard Cross in a recent study claims that God’s reasons for establishing certain moral norms are “aesthetic.” However, he fails to show clearly what is “aesthetic” about these reasons or why God’s will would follow “aesthetic” principles in legislating moral norms. This article clarifies both points, first, by painting an up-to-date picture of what constitutes “aesthetic” principles, and second, by providing a more accurate model of the way the human volitional faculty operates and addressing the problem of the “freedom of the will” from a present-day point of view.

Pirates, Kings and Reasons to Ad: Moral Motivation and the Role of Sanctions in Locke's Moral Theory

2007 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-48 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patricia Sheridan
Keyword(s):  
Natural Law ◽  
Moral Theory ◽  
Moral Motivation ◽  
Moral Good ◽  
Natural Laws ◽  
Law Of Nature ◽  
Human Understanding ◽  
Moral Duties ◽  
Moral Rules

Locke's moral theory consists of two explicit and distinct elements — a broadly rationalist theory of natural law and a hedonistic conception of moral good. The rationalist account, which we find most prominently in his early Essays on the Law of Nature, is generally taken to consist in three things. First, Locke holds that our moral rules are founded on universal, divine natural laws. Second, such moral laws are taken to be discoverable by reason. Third, by dint of their divine authorship, moral laws are obligatory and rationally discernible as such. Locke's hedonism, which is developed most fully in his later Essay Concerning Human Understanding, consists in the view that all good amounts to pleasure, with specifically moral good taken to consist in the pleasurable consequences of discharging one's moral duties.

FINNIS ON NATURE, REASON, GOD

Legal Theory ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 13 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 187-209
Author(s):  
Mark C. Murphy
Keyword(s):  
Natural Law ◽  
Natural Rights ◽  
Natural Law Theory ◽  
The Way

It is often claimed that John Finnis's natural law theory is detachable from the ultimate theistic explanation that he offers in the final chapter of Natural Law and Natural Rights. My aim in this paper is to think through the question of the detachability of Finnis's theistic explanation of the natural law from the remainder of his natural law view, both in Natural Law and Natural Rights and beyond. I argue that Finnis's theistic explanation of the natural law as actually presented can be, without too much strain, treated as largely detachable in the way that his readers have by and large supposed it to be; indeed, Finnis's account as actually presented really amounts to no explanation of the natural law at all, theistic or otherwise, and that fact accounts in part for the ease with which Finnis's natural law view can be detached from theism of that final chapter. Nevertheless, the considerations raised in that chapter militate in favor of a much more thoroughgoing, largely nondetachable theistic account. And it is just such an account that we find Finnis affirming in the development of his views after Natural Law and Natural Rights.

scholarly journals Themis and Dike – Justice in Greek Myth and Tradition

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 9-39
Author(s):  
Isidora Fürst
Keyword(s):  
Natural Law ◽  
Ancient Greece ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Greek Myth ◽  
Natural Laws ◽  
Greek Culture ◽  
Moral Power ◽  
Legislative Reforms ◽  
And Behavior

The understanding of law in Ancient Greece was based on the religious interpretations of human nature and natural laws. Two Greek goddesses were representatives of justice and fairness. In the ancient sources Themis is presented as a goddess and prophetess, one of the Titans and the daughter of Gea and Uranus. She is a symbol of divine order, justice, natural law and good customs. Dike, the daughter of Themis, is the goddess of justice and truth, the protector of rights and courts of justice, the arbiter, the symbol of honor, the goddess of revenge and punishment. In early Greek culture and poetry, the terms themis and dike represented justice in the meaning of cosmic order, natural law, and legality. The paper analyses the Hellenic notions of justice, fairness and legality embodied in the phenomena of themis and dike. Nomos (law) is just only if it is in harmony with themis, and law is valid only if it is just. The paper presents the doctrines of Hellenic writers, poets and playwrights on justice and law, with special reference to the influence of mythology on Hellenic law. Publius Ovidius Naso’s work „Metamorphosis”, which speaks about Themis’ role in the creation of the world and the salvation of the human race is one of the greatest sources about this goddess. In Homer’s „Iliad” and „Odyssey”, epics that sing of the heroic spirit, justice is shown in the motives, intentions and behavior of the participants in the event, mostly heroes. The poet Hesiod, famous for the poems „Theogony” and „Works and Days”, moves away from the heroic virtues of people and portrays the gods as bearers of moral power and guardians of justice. In the light of legislative reforms, Solon’s dike represents the progress and well-being of society through economic reforms, which is why justice and injustice refer only to legal and illegal acquisition of wealth and its effect on the community. Aeschylus’ „Oresteia” shows the principle of justice based on talion, according to which the punishment has to be identical with the committed crime. One of the greatest Ancient Greek playwrights, Sophocles, based his play „Antigone” on the conflict between the laws of men and the laws of gods. According to Herodotus, the greatest Ancient Greek historian, the actions of the gods govern human destinies and historical events. The idea of justice in Ancient Greece was all throughout its transformation based of the universial concept of natural balance.

scholarly journals Learning the natural law as maturation in wisdom

2016 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
David VanDrunen
Keyword(s):  
Natural Law ◽  
Life Experience ◽  
Technical Character ◽  
Suitable Power ◽  
Do So ◽  
The Way

Despite the technical character of natural law scholarship, most people who live in accord withthe natural law do not do so because they have been persuaded by technical argumentation. How do people truly come to know the natural law? Learning the natural law is essentially thesame process as maturing in wisdom. Building upon theological conceptions of natural lawand wisdom, this article concludes that wisdom is the suitable power by which peopleapprehend subjectively what the natural law prescribes objectively. Thus the way in which wegrow in wisdom – through a communal process of receiving instruction and observing andreflecting upon life experience – is also the primary way in which people come to know andpractice the natural law. This conclusion suggests a revised perspective on how natural lawyerspursue their work as they seek to address the moral fragmentation of our day.

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